My 94-year old mother lives with mid-stage Alzheimer's disease. Her condition is characterized by memory loss, confusion as to time and place, and heightened anxiety. To this point, I have have had some success in controlling her anxiety behaviorally. But I am wondering if she would be better served with a low dose of an anti-anxiety medication. I hesitate to introduce atypical anti-psychotic like Seroquel or Resperd due to their attendant risks and because their use would be off-label. I don't want to turn mom into a zombie either. Has anyone had any experience with these or other drugs used to treat Alzheimer's anxiety? Would it be better to just continue my behavioral approach until it no longer works?
This may not be the right drug for your mother. I tell my story just to illustrate that in some cases the off-label, risky medications are the lesser of the evils we have to choose among.
Make your decision in consultation with a doctor knowledgeable about Alzheimer's, and in love. Perfect? Alas, perfection is seldom possible in treating dementia. Do your best in love, and try not to stress over it.
Rather then re post information I've already written, if you go to the search bar near the top right of this page and put in "carollynn buspar" (please note the double "L"), 4 questions will come up on the left hand side. You can click on one at a time, which will take you to that thread. You can peruse the whole thing or you can scroll down looking for my Eye of God avatar. I'm pretty sure on at least one maybe two that I posted more than once, so be sure to continue reading until you come across the word buspar.
Buspar CAN cause drowsiness or dizziness but in my experience with 3 people on it, it didn't happen. It was first recommended for my aunt back in 1993, when it was a proprietary drug only. The psychiatric nurse practitioner recommended a gradually increasing dose so my aunt could accommodate to it with minimal to no side effects. We used the same protocol with my mom in 2011 two great success. It was 5 mg per day, then if all was well, increasing the dosage every 5 days in 5 milligram increments, divided throughout the day, until we reached 10 milligrams, 3 times per day, a total of 30 milligrams. That is just FYI as a guide but the psych RNP suggested it was better not to flush your system with the full dose right away.
Then about 3 weeks ago we had an episode of hallucinations and exit seeking.
We increased the dosage to one pill and she has been sleeping well all night long.
I don't think that I would have been able to keep mom here if she weren't getting that rest at night (and us). She was pacing, exit seeking, and her anxiety level was so very high. Now during the day she seems calm and well rested.
I know this isn't one of the medications that you were asking about, but sometimes we all need something.
label uses for doing so, are to reconnect the brain receptors. hope this helps.
Everyone is different and has different reactions to medications, its trial and error, I am afraid, but you can tell real fast by the behavior and in answer to a question why would someone want their Alzheimer's person to be knocked out all day???
There were some medications that whacked her out, but this one doesn't.